Maria Schneider, the French actress who co-starred with Marlon Brando in the taboo-breaking film “Last Tango in Paris,” has died. She was 58 years old.

According to the New York Times, her agency, Act 1, said she had passed away after a long illness but didn’t give any other details.

“Last Tango in Paris,” directed by Italian filmmaker Bernardo Bertolucci, was released in 1972. It centered on a widowed American businessman (Brando) who has a series of anonymous encounters with an engaged Parisian woman (Schneider). The film’s sex scenes–including a sequence involving a stick of butter and suggested anal intercourse–shocked and titillated audiences, breaking new ground for eroticism in mainstream cinema.

Brando, in his biography, said “Bernardo wanted me to make love to Maria Schneider to give the picture more authenticity. But it would have completely changed the picture and made our sex organs the focus of the story, and I refused.” Bertolucci disputed that claim, and is quoted in David Thompson’s book “Last Tango in Paris” as saying “It’s not true that I wanted real penetration. I wouldn’t have wanted to do that to Maria.”

For her part, Schneider didn’t find the production of the film to be all that sexy. She once said of Brando “I wasn’t excited by him, although my friends told me I should be, and I don’t think he was excited by me.”

But filmgoers and critics were excited by the results. In the 21st century, filmed sex is easily found on the internet, on cable TV or the local multiplex; for viewers in the 70s, nude on-screen intercourse featuring famous actors and filmed by a master director was something rare and provocative.

Norman Mailer wrote of a scene in the film in which Brando tears off Schneider’s panties that “it can be said that the cry of that fabric is the most thrilling sound to be heard in world culture since the four opening notes of Beethoven’s ‘Fifth.’” Pauline Kael hailed the film as “the most powerfully erotic movie ever made, and it may turn out to be the most liberating movie ever made.” “Last Tango in Paris” landed the covers of both Time and Newsweek, and stills of the nude scenes surfaced in Playboy.

Although “Last Tango in Paris” carried an X rating, the film isn’t as sex-filled as many of today’s mainstream offerings, such as “Blue Valentine,” or “Monster’s Ball,” which won Halle Berry an Oscar for best actress.

Schneider had a limited career and turbulent life. She never again achieved the global fame on film that she found with “Last Tango in Paris.” She appeared with Jack Nicholson in Michelangelo Antonioni’s “The Passenger,” and while that film was well-regarded by some critics, it didn’t become a cultural landmark like “Last Tango is Paris.”

After “Tango,” the young actress struggled to deal with fame and with questions about her personal life. “I’m bisexual completely,” she told the New York Times in 1973. “I’m incapable of fidelity. I have need for a million experiences. Women I love more for beauty than for sex. Men I love for grace and intelligence.”

She left the set of the movie “Caligula” in 1976 to check into a mental hospital. She continued to pop up in movie roles over the years, including an adaptation of “Jane Eyre” in 1996.

You can leave your thoughts about Schneider, and “Last Tango,” in the comments.